Taunton residents hoping to get involved with a patriotic cause have a perfect opportunity this weekend, through an effort to plant flags at the graves of U.S. veterans buried in the city ahead of Memorial Day.

Taunton residents hoping to get involved with a patriotic cause have a perfect opportunity this weekend, through an effort to plant flags at the graves of U.S. veterans buried in the city ahead of Memorial Day.

The Taunton Veterans Memorial Marker Committee is organizing a morning of volunteer flag planting at Mayflower Hill Cemetery on Saturday, said Peter Thomson, the city’s veterans graves officer and a member of the committee. Volunteers are gathering shortly before 9 a.m. to plant more than 1,400 flags at the cemetery, which is located at 235 Broadway, Thomson said.

“The more the merrier,” Thomson said. “We have several people who have been coming back from year-to-year. But we are trying to get more people involved, including the younger crowd. We hope they can make it a tradition each year, helping to plant flags before Memorial Day to honor our veterans.”

Thomson encouraged local youth organizations, like the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, to get involved and to take ownership of specific sections of the cemetery for yearly flag planting.

“We are hoping to get some consistency, to have people flag the same sections each year, so that way the younger crowd comes in and keeps it going,” said Thomson, explaining that younger volunteers are needed to take the place of older contributors to the annual Memorial Day effort. “For instance, I have several Girl Scouts who are helping me out at St. Joseph Cemetery. They expressed interest in having the same spot year-to-year. That way they learn the history of the graves there from year-to-year. They take a little more pride if they do the same section.”

The flag planting efforts have been made a lot easier since the completion of the Taunton Veterans Memorial Marker Committee’s campaign to suit all the veterans graves in the city — more than 7,000 — with specially made aluminum veterans grave markers. The committee started the campaign about five years ago and it was completed late last year after the group raised enough money for the circular markers, which are staked into the ground and feature a small hole to place a flag in.

Lee Lemieux, another member of the Veterans Memorial Marker Committee, said that this year’s Memorial Day flag marking will be the first year that all the graves that get a flag will also be suited with a veterans grave marker.

“All the veterans buried in Taunton are recognized now,” said Lemieux, explaining that the deterioration of gravestones had previously left some of the older veterans graves indistinguishable.

Lemieux said that have the veterans’ graves markers makes the flag placement much easier for the volunteers.

“It makes it 10 times easier, “ he said. “That was good plan. It’s a really good thing. You get the Girl Scouts and the Boy Scouts and other people involved. It’s just a great thing you got to remember where we came from. A lot of guys gave the ultimate serving our country. It’s an honor to be a part of that committee.”

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While the Veterans Memorial Marker Committee raised enough for all current veterans graves in the city, it has continued to raise additional funds to maintain the effort and buy additional veterans graves markers when needed. For instance, the group held a pasta dinner fundraiser on April 6 at the Italian Social Club, which has been a big supporter of the memorial marker campaign, Thomson said.

Thomson encouraged parents to bring their children to the volunteer flag-planting event at Mayflower Hill Cemetery on Saturday. He said, “It’s a good education for the kids.”

For more information about the volunteer flag planting effort, contact Thomson at 508-685-3979.